Street date shuffle The release of Martha Wells’ Empire and Rebellion: Razor’s Edge has moved up a week again, this time to September 24, Del Rey tweeted yesterday. Meanwhile, the paperback for Timothy Zahn’s Scoundrels is set for November 26. As always, the dates hang out on our schedule page.

Elsewheres…Time Traveled Tales, a book of short stories that features Aaron Allston, Mike Stackpole and Timothy Zahn among others (like CJers Janine K. Spendlove and Bryan Young) may have passed its original Kickstarter goal of $7,500, but with 17 days to go you can back it now to help add second stories from Stackpole, Allston and Zahn. Meanwhile, a $5 donation guarantees you an eBook version of the anthology.

Del Rey had a Facebook chat with Timothy Zahn for Scoundrels today, and it was… Very busy. I admit I skimmed most of the actual questions, but I can verify that all of Zahn’s answers are free of spoilers for Scoundrels.

There was a lot of old ground covered, but we did get a surprisingly detailed look at what Zahn has pitched to Del Rey. He begins:

If there are to be more books, and if LFL/Del Rey/Disney decide to let me write some of them, I have a trilogy project to pitch where the third book would also be the third book of the Hand of Judgment series (Allegiance and Choices of One). Again, I don’t know if that will happen.

And later….

A Fel or Chiss novel would be fun. As a matter of fact, the trilogy I mentioned above (which I’ll pitch if I’m invited to do another book) would have one book heavily involving Thrawn and the Chiss. (The middle book, btw, would feature Mara being sent to stop an assassination…against Vader. Imagine the fun they would *both* have with *that* assignment.) The proposed series title is The Maestro Trilogy, if anyone wants to star nagging Del Rey. (No, seriously, *don’t* nag. Just ask politely…)

When asked about his favorite era:

At the moment I like writing in the Ep 4/5 gap, partly because the characters are so much fun in that era and partly because the territory hasn’t been as well explored. However, I understand there are several books now scheduled in that time, so it may start getting crowded. As to other eras, the Old Republic era has a lot of good writers who are working there, and I’m not sure whether Del Rey is planning to go beyond Legacy of the Force right now. If the Ep 3/4 gap is ever opened up (LFL so far has kept that off-limits) there are a bunch of stories I could tell there.

And naturally he was asked quite a bit about the sequel trilogy and how it relates to his books:

Actually, I think Disney will do right by LFL. Their record with Pixar and Marvel indicates they know how to step back and let the people who know what they’re doing just do it. With Kathleen Kennedy now helming LFL, and with all the wonderfully talented people already in place there, I’m expecting good things to come. Of course, if Disney decided they wanted a couple of TV shows, and just *happened* to think of Mara Jade or the Hand of Judgment, I would certanly not stand in their way.

As to whether any of my characters might show up in the sequels: Again, no idea what’s being planned, but I would naturally love to see something I’ve done up there on the Big Screen.

Overall, I find myself hoping (yet again) that Del Rey finds a different way to do these chats. Sure, a couple good things came out of this one, but it was a bit of a mess…

At his Star Wars: Scoundrels signing in San Diego on January 12, Timothy Zahn gave a talk on how the novel came to be and then held a Q&A session. He discussed the real world publication timeline he worked with, his initial idea to make it a heist using a who’s who of the main characters and top smugglers in the GFFA (Luke, Han, Leia, Mara, Lando, Corran, Mirax, Talon and more) just before the New Jedi Order, and how even the cover art influenced the final story.

With Scoundrels just released in hardcover, author Timothy Zahn has been on a book tour of the West Coast. I was able to spend a few minutes with him before his signing at San Diego’s Mysterious Galaxy bookstore on Saturday to chat about Scoundrels and what else he’s got in the pipeline. Stay tuned later this week for more video from the signing, including Tim discussing how Scoundrels came to be, and audience Q & A.

As you may recall – or not, depending on how much partying was done last night, today is the release of Timothy Zahn’s Scoundrels. You know, that book some of us wouldn’t shut up about for most of 2012?

What else do we have coming up this month? Well, Brian Wood’s Star Wars #1 ought to debut next week, and the final Fate of the Jedi book, Troy Denning’s Apocalypse, will be out in paperback on the 29th.

As James pointed out in our earlier Scoundrels post, it seems like every year lately there’s been a Star Wars book that comes out almost directly after the holiday. Many of us has been wondering about that in light of Scoundrels, but there is a solid reason, according to LFL’s Jennifer Heddle:

Pubtip: Sometimes certain books come out right after the holidays on purpose, so they don’t get lost in the holiday avalanche of gift books.